In the Aftermath
by NumeroCinco
Summary: After the great war of the worlds, the Garde cope with returning to normal lives. Because I don't want it to end and that ending of UaO left a lot to be desired.
1. Chapter 1

It's the middle of the night when I wake in a warm sweat and a searing pain wrapping around my leg. It's like a Charlie horse, but so much worse, burning with the heat of a thousand suns and scorching through the my thin summer blanket.

I've felt it all before, it's just _so_ stunning to be feeling again. _We're through with this! Aren't we done with all the pain? Who is it! What happened?_

The bedsheets will combust if I linger too long, I _know_ this, so I throw them off of me and roll onto the floor, clutching at my ankle. I just have to see it, just have to.. _see it_.

Four tan rings, scars, around the base of my leg, and one new, bright yellow one, slowly oranging. It glows as I see it now, the light spraying out of it and pouring over the dust particles that infect the air that I must've thrown up in my flurry to escape the bed.

My fingers touch it, rake over it, feel it. I had thought that my lumen would save me from this burning pain, but I'd have been wrong on that account. For the first time since… since Chicago, I feel the heat, the red-hot heat against my fingertips, and I pull them away half in shock.

 _Who is it? What the fuck happened?_

I hear a thump from outside my door as it's thrown open- Marina charges in and collapses against the front of my bed, still gasping. " _I thought it was you_ ," she breathes. " _I thought it might be you_."

The pain starts to die down now, enough to let me _think_ without the heat protruding into my thoughts. "Where's the phone? Fine a phone…" I plead with her, but she just looks at me, still dazed.

 _My bedstand. There's one there. The landline._ I reach up from the floor onto the stand and feel around, my shaking hands searching more out if instinct and sheer force of will than anything. The lamp gets knocked off and it slams into the carpet, but doesn't shatter; and then I feel it, the phone on its charger. I try to grab it but it falls off that charger, and I feel around more and _there it is, I've got it_!

" _Who do I call_ ," my mind asks out loud. Nine or Six. Who is it? The voice in the back of my mind screams of another possibility, but I don't let it out. Not yet. _Not yet_.

" _Six_ ," she whispers. "Make sure it isn't… make sure she's still here," Marina struggles to get to her feet, but settles for her knees as I dial. I'm still slumped to the floor, head in the crook between the stand and the bed, but I don't care a whole lot right now.

The line only rings once. "John!"

I let myself breathe a little more easily. Just a little. The sound of her voice- while it usually isn't exactly _comforting_ , it definitely is more comforting than the alternative. " _Six, Six, Six, it's not you_."

"Is Marina there with you?" Her voice is shaky.

"She's here," I say. "She's fine." I hear her gulp and breathe for a few seconds before saying anything.

"Check Nine," she orders, her voice stern, powerful again. "If he answers."

"If he doesn't…"

"Don't jump to conclusions."

She hangs up on me then. I look back to Marina, who's still gasping, but who looks… calmer. Her hair is a tangled mess and she has bags under her eyes, but she'll be okay.

Nine mentioned something about a business conference in London, so I make sure to call his cell.

Nine's place picks up after three rings, and it's not even him who answers. It's some girl's voice.

"Is this the police!" she shouts. "I need the police!"

I look to Marina. The intensity in her eyes is back, as strong as ever. "No, this is John Smith," I say, evenly as I can. "Why do you need the police? Did something happen?"

"Yeah!" She shouts, sounding more pissed off than anything. "My lay just set the bed on fire! I think he tried to kill me!"

"Your lay…" I trail off, almost, _almost_ laughing. "Would that be Nine?"

"The fucking Professor at the Garde Institute, yeah! I thought he was acting tipsy last night, but this is… is he a psychopath or something?"

There's a muffled sound I can't identify, and then the in the background I can hear Nine's voice chastising the girl for answering his phone. And then he talks in earnest.

"Johnny Boy, it's not you?"

" _No._ "

"Too bad, too bad," he mutters. "Marina and Six?"

"They're fine, Nine," I say. "And you are too. Well… mostly fine."

"I don't judge you, you don't judge me, that's the deal, right?" He reminds me. "You said that. I want you to remember you said that."

"I remember, I remember!" Marina looks more concerned now, but I nod in her direction and focus back on Nine. "So, you got the scar, too."

"Why wouldn't I, John-Bon?" He groans. "I might be an armless freak, but I'm still one of the charmed."

"You know what that means, then, as well as I do."

"To be quite honest, I don't even feel that bad," he sounds resigned, as if he was expecting it. "After you and Mar told me that he was hiding out on that scratch of land in the middle of nowhere, looking like a holocaust survivor more than anything, I figured we didn't have long."

"He died alone and in pain," I say, but I'm not sure that I believe it myself. "No one deserves that, least of all enemies."

" _Most_ of all enemies," he corrects me. "Well, if you all are alright…" He's putting on this show of bravado, I can tell, but under that I can hear something else in his voice. A gentler tone. He cares. Even if he doesn't want me to think he does.

"Call Six," I tell him. "She'll want to talk."

"Whatever you say," and he hangs up all the same as she did. And then I'm left with Mar's piercing stare.

"It's Five," she says. She's smart enough to figure that one out, based on what I had said. Anyone is. I nod.

"We don't know what happened, but… yes."

She leans back on her haunches and looks around the room, probably thinking. "He was supposed to be mine."

I ease myself into a sitting position and stretch out my right leg, inspecting the fifth scar. It's already cooled to a muted red color, and as I watch it settles down into a pink hue, a tender ring around my leg. "I thought you were over that."

"I was," she says. "But he was still mine."

"That doesn't make any sense, I hope you know that."

"You'd understand if you hadn't already killed Ra," she snaps. I say nothing, I do nothing, I just wrap my fingers around my newest scar and let her think it over. That's always the best option. She looks down at her own, the same pink color, the same four dark marks below it. _One of those was supposed to be mine_. _And yet here I am_.

"I'm not sleeping any more tonight," she declares. "In fact, I think I'll go out."

"Mar, it's," I glance over to the clock on my TV. "Five in the morning."

"Nothing new, then," she says. "In Spain I used to get up at five every day, religiously, and go do the chores of those stupid nuns. I'm used to it."

I pull my knees up to my chest and ask, "Alright, alright. Where are we going, then?"

I had asked her where she wanted to live, since all the blood and pain was supposed to be over. We were basically royalty to half the planet, we could go wherever we wanted. Since she had always been in such isolation, she decided upon a city; but which city, that was the tough part. She didn't want anything that reminded her of Chicago, or Spain. That narrowed it down. And she wanted something close to the loralite stones, so we could jump if we needed.

I had pulled that atlas back out and we had poured over it for a week before we decided. There was a stone just across the water from us, on the other continent, half an hour away if we drove quickly. That's good enough.

The biggest city in Europe, the heart of empires, the Queen of Cities itself. Istanbul.

My Turkish could really use some work.

We step out into the crisp autumn air- at least, as crisp as it can get on the coast of the Mediterranean. In the distance, various pillars of imperial mosques jut out of the cityscape and tower high above, and across the strip of water, the Asian half of the city glows with life, even if it is the early yet.

I let her lead me, like I usually do. She takes my hand and drags me through the streets, still crowded, but less so now than last night, to the very edge of the water. The old city- where we found our penthouse- sits on a peninsula, with the end of it jutting into the water pointing towards Asia. We have to go around the old residences of the Sultans who used to live here, but that's really not a problem after everything we've been through.

Mar leads me to a rocky beach at the head of the water, the stones crunching under my boots as I move. She drops my hand and takes off her own shoes and socks, and rolls up her jeans, and then sits down on the shore and lets the water lap at her feet. I don't make to follow her, because these stones always bother my feet- they're so sharp, and in the summer heat they usually burn, too. I find a place back at the edge of the beach, under a tree, and watch her watching the scene. And I do a little reflecting.

It's September. As the trees begin to turn back home, it's been four months since I came back. Four months since I found her on that boat. Sixteen months since the world changed forever. Sixteen months and eight days, to be precise, but who's counting? Sixteen months and eight days since we came out to the world, sixteen months and eight days since the invasion. And I don't tell her this, but today marks two years since Henri and I arrived in Paradise. That seems so unimaginably long ago that it isn't even real anymore, but I know that it was. It was real. To me then, to him. It almost makes me sad, reflecting on the past.

And then I remember the future that we still have to build.


	2. Chapter 2

TWO:

The brilliant cobalt of these stones never ceases to amaze me. It's the deepest, richest color I've ever seen in anything, and it's a _rock_. The way it glows, almost sparkling, glinting in the harsh midday sunlight, is mesmerizing; if I stare at it long enough I can almost see waves and shades ripple across its smoothly jagged surface.

The Turks have been kind enough to section this area off for a hundred meters around, surrounding it with a fence and then planting trees and making something akin to a garden. Those trees are still saplings, of course, but I know that one day this place will seep beauty. The stone itself sits in the center of a circle of trimmed hedges and large, white rocks, with a sidewalk rimming the rocks. The grass around the loralite is recently trimmed, which isn't _that_ shocking if I think about it.

"It's three AM in Paradise right now," Mar tells me. "Think either of them will be coherent?"

"Wanna bet?" I flash her half a grin, but I still can't but my all into it. I still feel the lingering ache of that scar, and I know exactly what it means. I won't let myself be happy about that at all. What did I tell myself so long ago? The Loric are more precious than anything I can imagine? The death of one is the death of another of the few remaining of my race?

The Garde may live on, but the Loric probably won't. I'm honest enough with myself to know it's true. There are six Lorics left in the entire universe, after Five's death. I make a mental note to ask Lexa to resume training in the Loric language- for posterity, for preservation, all that.

"You're quiet," she whispers to me.

"Thinking," I say. It's half true.

"You always are," She snuggles up against me, and I let myself flush against her side. We're on a bench in the ring around the stone, just watching for a little while. Mar told me a while back that it's always a good idea to stop and take in the beauty of the world for a few moments every day. Healthier. Keeps you in a good mind.

She takes my hand and presses her cryo into it, so I flash my lumen back to counteract. She always likes it when I do that.

"There's a lot to think about," I try.

"You _can_ talk to me, you know," she says. "I won't tell."

With what she might take as a resigned sigh, I start. "Just about the future. Always that, you know?"

"Always that," she echoes.

"The future of our race, all that," I chuckle a little bit accidentally, bitterly. "The Lorics will die off, sooner or later."

"There are things that can be done to prevent it, you know," she says, elbowing me in the ribs. "So I've been told."

"It's inevitable either way," I continue. "There's too few of us to sustain a population. Hell, there are hardly enough to sustain an extended family."

She draws the quiet out for longer than I figured she would, but eventually she breathes in, then out, then says, "It's probably about time."

"Probably."

"That means _get up_."

I roll my eyes and stand with all the energy remaining to me. She pulls her knees up to her chest and looks resolute for a few seconds, before offering me her hand.

Together we move to the stone, slowly, letting its ethereal energy spill out into the air and onto us. When we reach it I can see the light blue lines, almost electric, tendril across its surface, almost like it can sense our presence.

I look back at Mar and she looks back at me. She's not afraid- not anymore, at least. That part of her is long, _long_ gone.

I will it to take us there.

As usual, it resists. For all my power, I still haven't figured out how to control the stones. We land in grassy field around Stonehenge and Mar chuckles ruefully, squeezing my hand. I jump again.

The landscape blinks and we're somewhere else, no fanfare, no noise, nothing. Suddenly the wind is strong and the sound of waves lapping at rocks is distant. I think I recognize it as New Zealand. Doesn't matter for now. I jump again.

Third try is apparently the charm, because the landscape is suddenly dark and it takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the light of the cave. The cave _I_ carved, more or less. It was there already, of course, but I was the one who perfected it. That took far too long.

Mar drops my hand and jogs forward, around the corner, leaving me alone in the circular room. As my eyes finally start to even out, I can see my work in full face: the blue stone in the center of the floor, the lines and symbols embossed all across the floor's face leading up to the smooth, black walls. After a moment more, I follow her.

The complex is nothing huge, I get that. All the same, it is still larger than most houses, with rooms for… weapons, supplies, training, all the things Garde on the run would need to survive. Because I know what it's like to not have anywhere to go. I know it by heart now, the locations of everything, but every once in a while it's nice to let myself get lost in it.

The room on my right is nothing but an observation platform. Its wall is a huge, rather crude rectangular hole that gives the view of the whole Himalayan Valley below- the flat, forested plateau at the bottom, ringed by snowcapped mountains in layers going back to the horizon.

I step out onto the balcony and the wind catches me a little off guard, but I press my hands into the edges of the window and take a good, wide look around. There's nothing more peaceful than a good look around.

"John!" Someone calls. "Everyone's here."

And I turn around. Six is the one who came to get me, it turns out; her raven hair blows in the wind and she tucks it behind her ear and looks me in the eye with that little smirk of hers.

"Glad it wasn't you, by the way," she says. "You're actually a decent person. Sometimes."

She turns to lead me back but I grab her and spin her around into a hug. She might hesitate, but she still leans back into it with all her force. " _I missed you_ ," she says. " _You left without even saying good-bye_."

"Something I still regret," I say. She leans back and gives me another half smile, nods, and turns back. This time, I follow.

As I stalk into the room, a couple people rise: Nine, probably sarcastically, and Sam, probably reverently. I grin and motion for them to ease, and take the chair between Mar and where Six plops down.

It's my job to start us off, I know. "I think most of you know why I called you here today," I say, looking around at all of them. There's so few, it's depressing. Marina. Six and Sam. Nine. Adam. Lexa. Ella. And Me.

The last of the Loric.

"I would have called the Human Garde here if the occasion were different," I say. "But the occasion is… something we haven't planned for. Hell, we haven't even briefed some of the Humans on the charm."

"Some," Sam emphasizes.

"To bring the rest of you up to speed, Adam, Lexa, the four of us under the charm got another scar two nights ago. Since us four are here now, that means one thing."

"Number Five is gone," Lexa finishes.

"Serves the little bastard right," Nine mutters. When half the table flashes him a _look_ , he backs down.

"We don't even know where he was," I say. "Las time we say him alive was months ago, on some south Pacific island built on obscurity. He could have been anywhere, doing anything."

"Does it matter?" Adam speaks up. That's unusual.

"Hmm?"

"He was a traitor, and a ghost, you said it yourself," he says. "He's dead, so what? We won't be at any particular loss without him."

" _Savage_ ," Nine whispers.

"You don't know what it's like, being last of such a _doomed_ race," I look around at the others. Marina. Six. Nine. Ella. Lexa. _That's it_. "There's six Loric left _in the world_. He might have been a traitor and a bastard and whatever else, but he _was_ Loric and he _was_ instrumental in the ultimate defeat of the Mogs. We couldn't have done it without him."

"Yeah, but he did that other thing," Nine's gaze flashes between me and Marina, and back again. "That _other_ thing that would have made the war much simpler had he just _not_ to begin with. He won the war by fixing a problem _he_ caused!"

"We're not here to argue hypotheticals, Nine," I say, not even noticing the raise in my voice. Under the table I feel Mar's leg brush up against mine, and the chill that comes with it. I press back with a little of my lumen, just a little. "The fact of the matter is, he was important in the end. We at least owe him the honor of that recognition."

"All he did was for his own _advancement_ , Johnny!" Nine scoots his chair back loudly and throws his feet up on the table, probably an affront to the Loric gods. "We don't owe him anything."

" _And_ there's so few Loric left that the ones that we _do_ have need to be honored, no matter what. Lorien above all else, remember?"

"That cunt didn't," he says.

I suck in a breath and sink back into the chair. I made these things intentionally uncomfortable, because of all that _chairs of power should never be comfortable_ bullshit, but I'm starting to _really_ regret that when Lexa speaks up.

"John is right," she says. "He might have been the worst of us, but he was one of us."

I gesture towards her, but Nine doesn't notice.

"What do we do about it, then?" Six asks. "He's dead, yeah. We don't even know where he is! We have to _find_ him first, and that's too much effort for a formality."

"I'll put out a notice to the press and the UN to send out bulletins," I say. "We can find him if we try. Odds are he starved on that island."

"That seems excessive," she says. Her eyes, grey and soft, nevertheless look right into my soul, and I have to try to hold their gaze.

Nine folds his feet back off the table and folds presses forward, making like he'll speak. "Better than one of us going door-to-door, if it comes right down to it."

"Thank you," I gesture at him, too. He slouches back.

In the silence that follows, I realize it's my job to address the other issues as well. _So_ many problems, all around the world, all need our attention. I start with the most pressing one.

"Well, that settled… I'll send a notice to the UN to put out men to find his body. We'll tip them on the location of the island, and if they manage it I'll have them deliver it to… here?"

"This is a Loric place," Nine says. "Have them take it somewhere else."

"Where?"

"The Academy…," he trails off. "I'll take the hit, guys, don't worry."

"I'll be there with you when it arrives."

" _If_."

I lean forward and fold my hands on the surface of the table, taking that as cue to change the subject. "In list of the other pressing matters that need our attention… The Russian government is still being obstinate to allowing its Human Garde to even show their faces in public."

"I thought they gave them all to Ra," Nine says. "I still remember the smell of that mass grave, John-Boy."

"Not all of them. Russia's a huge place, there are some still living in hiding, some out in the rural parts of Siberia… They're still there, and they need help."

"What do we do, then?" Six asks. "Threats? Force? What?"

"Both, preferably," I grin to her. "But lacking that, I'll bring it in front of the UN after the Five business."

"You think the Russians will fold to you, you're wrong," Adam says. "I've seen the like of this Putin character before. He reminds me of Ra."

"The fact is, we have to acknowledge the tensions _everywhere_ ," I stress. "We may have won the war, now we have to win the peace. I kinda think the latter will be the harder."

"After killing an alien dictator and protracted, two planet war, Johnny?" Nine says. "I doubt that."

"You haven't thought about it much, then."

"Spend most of my time with the younglings nowadays, don't have much time to think about politics."

" _And yet you still have time to think about getting laid_ ," Marina whispers low enough that only I hear.

"Well, it's time to start thinking," I say. "If you think the Russians are the only problem we have, well, you're in for a lesson, _Professor_."

"Fine, then. Lay it out. Spell it out for me. What are we dealing with?"

"Minor hate crimes against Human Garde all over the planet, murders, rapes, defacings… suicides…"

"They think it goes against religions to receive legacies," Lexa says. "I've studied the news about it extensively."

"You'll be my right hand, then, when I address the UN… again. What's that, _three_?"

"It's a worthy cause, John," Ella finally says something. The whole table rotates to her. Her hair is longer now, down past her shoulders, and died black to mimic Six's. She's been living with Lexa these past few months since I left her. I've been meaning to talk to her about that, actually. I make a mental note to do that after the meeting.

"I know that, it's just _hard_."

"You've been through worse," she grins at me, and then when she laughs, we all laugh with her, remembering the horrors of the war to end all wars.

This isn't over, I think. This is just getting started.

 _ **Hey, guys! Sorry the second chapter took so long, I was busy yesterday. Anyway, remember to review and all that, it really helps with motivation to know I'm not alone over here. Anyway, thanks for reading, and check back for updates soon.**_


	3. Chapter 3

THREE:

The first snows of the winter come on a Thursday and blanket the ground in a thin sheen of white haze. Down on the street below, layered pedestrians and old-style streetcars alike scurry past, all eager to escape the blistering cold that has engulfed the city. Marina's out there, somewhere, I know that much; she had told me an hour ago that she wanted to go searching for… something, I can't remember. But she had told me that she'd be back soon.

I glance back at the TV again with a little nervous tick: the first storm of winter is bearing down on us from the north and while most of its power will break out over the sea, it'll still plow right over all of us.

"John-Bon, stop brooding! You'll have plenty of time for that when I leave, I bet," Nine hollers from the kitchen, probably. I'd been planning on having the whole lot over for, well, just a get-together, really, but everyone except Six and Nine had explained that they had pressing business to attend to in various departments. Adam had described a massive break-out plot amongst the more rowdy in his camp and how he couldn't leave for a second; Lexa had told me of a new installation on the campus grounds that she needed to oversee; and Sam and his dad had taken a _family vacation_ , Six had said bitterly. I didn't want to ask, but I know I will eventually.

And, of course, I had tried to invite Ella, but she was still sticking to Lexa's side. I wonder if she's avoiding me. I truly am sorry for leaving her, but I thought she knew _why_ , at least. My plan was to talk to her now. Even after we had met in the cave weeks ago, she hadn't seemed to thaw to me yet.

The door to my room opens without ceremony and Nine pushes in and flops down on my bed. It's never clean, of course, but he reeks of some unidentifiable smell and I have the sudden urge to wash it when he leaves. "She'll be back, you know," he says. When I don't say anything, he mutters under his breath, " _Ah, to be young and in love again_...

"You know, I could be back home, being useful, right now," he tries. "Lexa wanted to stay back there, but I came! To see you, and… you're in here, sulking…," he trails off.

"She should be back by now," I say.

"Have any of your girlfriends ever told you how…, clingy… you are? You always want to know where they are, what they're doing, why they aren't with you…"

"No, they haven't."

He sighs. "Look, let's go back to the kitchen, talk, maybe watch something, she'll be back any minute and join in. Aight?"

With a little reluctance, I follow.

Six is splayed out on my couch, sipping something out of a mug, when we saunter back in. Her hair is down for the first time in a while, black and dark as pitch.

"There you are," she says when she notices me. "I figured you jumped out the window to go find her or something."

"Surprisingly, no," I say, taking the chair to the right. "I just wish she'd get here, this storm is gonna be something else."

"She lived in the mountains of Spain, John, I think she's been through the motions before," Six gives me a little smirk and an eyebrow raise, and I look away. "The day I found her in that town, the snow was up to your thighs," she continues. "We managed to get down to a forest to fight, where there wasn't _quite_ so much snow everywhere, but she seemed perfectly fine in it. Are you afraid she'll melt or something?"

"The opposite, actually," I say, only really half listening. With the other half of my brain I flick the TV on and turn it to the same channel, showing various Turkish weatherpeople reporting on the status of _'The First Storm of Winter_.'

Nine takes the chair on the other side of the couch and sneers at me. "You remind me so much of Sandor sometimes. He used to sit around for hours and worry that I'd never come back to him, surely I've told you the stories," he takes a sip from his bottle. Some Greek wine, from the looks.

"I wish you wouldn't drink, Nine, it's a bad influence…" I say, but I know he won't listen.

"More and more like Sandor every day, it seems."

A soft silence falls over us, but for a time I don't move to interrupt it. It's peaceful- but for the sounds of Nine's bottle softly clinking against the wooden coffee table every once in a while.

"Henri used to be like that, too," I eventually say. "He cared about me so much, but at the time I never could appreciate it."

Nine looks somber, all of the sudden. Reflective. "Yeah, I know the feeling. I wasn't there when they captured Sandor, but I know he looked for my everywhere. He travelled across the country trying to figure out if I was even still alive, and for all he knew it was all in vain…"

"You did the right thing, you know," I tell him. "When the time came in that mountain and you knew you couldn't save him. The Mogs would have torn him apart."

"I know." He takes another long, long drink.

Through this, Six is quiet. She isn't usually this quiet. I sit there trying to figure out how to get her to talk- _So, dead Cepans?_ Or _What about you? How was Kat when you last saw her?_ \- But I'm not nearly that stupid, despite Nine's occasional banter.

"I could have saved Henri if I had tried," I say. "You did the right thing with Sandor, I was just an idiot. And idiot who thought he had it all figured out, but I _really_ didn't. I see that now."

"You saved that Human girl from the fire, right? Sarah?"

"That's right," I say. "I was willing to risk everything for her, but I never knew how good I really had it. We were safe in Paradise, and comfortable. I was training and getting stronger every day, and I had to go and.. ruin that."

"You wanted to have a normal life," Six croaks, and I finally see what I had been missing- she's been softly crying for the whole conversation, all keeping is silent. Nine shrugs at me.

"That's right," I say as soothingly as I can muster. "It was a stupid want."

Sit sits up wearily, her eyes red around the edges. "No, it wasn't. We all dreamed of it as some point."

It's then that the door cracks and Marina walks in. Six wipes her eyes and throws a glance over her right, and Nine sets his bottle down and crosses his legs, looking more at me than her.

"I didn't find it," she says, closing the door and turning around, only then laying eyes on Six. She looks back to me with that stricken, kicked puppy look I hate and rushes over to her, swooping her up in a hug as she sits down. "What happened?" She asks quietly.

"We're just talking," Six sniffles again and Marina peels away, still not really at rest. She still has her snow-covered boots on, and her coat and the whole ensemble.

"About…?"

"The past. Cepans."

"Oh," she says, finally sliding off the coat and the boots and setting them orderly down near the table.

"The sacrifices they made, the horrible deaths they suffered, all that," Six continues. "I can still see the man who murdered Katarina. I kill him every night in my sleep," she gulps.

Marina leans back a bit, but she's still rigid, uncomfortable. I know what she's thinking- Adelina was never anything like our Cepans. She wasn't loving, or kind, or particularly helpful in fulfilling the final goal of our war, but she died a noble death all the same. A pointless and avoidable death, sure, but she died fighting the Mogs. I almost say all that for her, but I stop- that's something she has to say. It's not my place.

But instead she does nothing, says nothing. She clasps her hands in her lap and hurries a glance over at me. The look in her eyes is a sad one, something I've seen all too often lately. The hastening storm outside certainly doesn't help to lighten the mood, and as darkness slowly slips over the room, someone reaches out telekinetically and flips the lights on.

Across the room, Nine _grins_. Grins? What could be possibly be grinning at?

I shoot him a look as hard as I can, and he speaks up.

" _Nine, now four, are the rest of you out there_?"

"Hm?" Marina's head swivels over to him. "What was that?"

"We're all here," he says. "We haven't all been together and… alone, in… forver, I think. This is the first time it's _just_ all the Garde."

"Ella isn't here," she says. "I still don't know _why_ she isn't here, but she isn't."

"Oh, you remember the fucking blog post as well as I do," he takes a sip. " _Nine, now-"_

 _"_ _Eight, are the rest of you out there_ ," Marina finishes. "Yeah, I remember the fucking blog post, Nine."

He shrugs again. "It's never been just us. There was always Sarah, Sam, all that lot. Where is Sam, anyway?"

"We fought," Six says, simply. "I don't wanna talk about it."

"I can respect that-,"

" _Then do_ ," she snaps.

Figuring I should change the topic, I say, "Two died in London, right? We never did find her body."

"We don't even know what she looked like," Marina says. "The first three Garde are mostly mysteries, and there's no way to solve them. Adam only has One in his memory, and even he can't fully remember her face… as for the rest, when the Mogs destroyed their records, well, there they went."

"Adam said they were under Ashwood, so while we were entrenched there I went to take a look," I say. "The place was still destroyed from his quake, I couldn't tell left from right down in those tunnels in some places."

"The could be entombed down there, you know," she says. "Lost to history. They gave their lives so that we could live and they've been buried under a mountain of Mogodorian killing machines."

"We don't know that… They could be anywhere."

"At least I know where Eight went. At least I could put him to rest. And as much as I hate to admit it, Five deserved… to be cast into the sanctuary as well. I hated the idea of him being in there with Eight, but you were right. That was the honorable call."

"I know."

Six chuckles, slowly looking around at all of us. " _Nine, now four, are the rest of you out there?_ "

"Just getting it, sweatheart?"

She waves him off. "There's so few of us. Have there always been this few of us?"

"The Loric Garde, the proud and powerful army of _six_ , that's how it was in Chicago," Nine says. "The humans were there, too, but it was us who would fight the hardest and strongest if it came down to it, don't deny it."

"Sam and Sarah would have fought just as hard," I say. "They _did_ , I mean. She gave her life for this."

"So did millions of Loric," Nine takes another sip. "Millions, billions of people, probably, gave their lives so that we could sit here, right now, and tell old war stories around our campfire."

Somewhere far away, the first boom of thunder crashes away.

"I don't think that's _exactly_ it," Six wipes her eyes again, but I can tell she won't cry anymore.

Outside, the sleet starts to come down in earnest, but in here I know we're safe. The four of us probably have more firepower than some small nations. We'll be fine.

After so long a time fighting, I finally feel safe. There's no one left to come chase us, no one strong enough to stand against us, and no reason for any of it to happen. For now at least, I can finally rest. I wonder how long it'll last before I get called back for the next alien invasion, the next world war, any of it. But for now at least, I watch the sleet come down and reflect, because that's all I really can do.

 _ **Remember to review!**_


	4. Chapter 4

FOUR:

The night of the Presidential Gala in New York was less exciting than I had been anticipating. I had been psyching myself up for it- the publicity, the exposure, the _dancing_ \- for a week beforehand- and so I may have perhaps been _too_ overprepared for what it actually was.

For our part, we were largely ignored in the crowd of dignitaries. The war had been a year and a half ago and while the wounds were still fresh, they weren't _so_ fresh as to warrant our intensive grilling. Mine in particular. Throughout the night I still found myself thanked by heads of state of numerous countries around the world, by famous stars and the like, but I knew it was all a formality. They had done this before, the first time, after the invasion. I hadn't been at that one, but they had still grilled the rest to within and inch of their lives.

It's late that night that I find myself on the roof, overlooking the city below. I lost my tux jacket somewhere back inside- did I leave it on my seat?- and it's starting to actually get cold in the dim, winter breeze. I have half a mind to go back and get it, but that'll just suck me back into the pomp and circumstance that, if I'm being truly honest, I care very little for.

Am I hiding? Probably. I should know, I've done it enough so far already. _Hid from the first gala, hid from the second. How's that for consistency?_

The breeze picks up for a few tense moments and I'm _sure_ now I have to do something. Number Four will not freeze to death, mark my words.

I look around for something… combustible. The place is mostly barren, and surrounded by a wrought iron railing that prevents humans from falling but does little to stop that wind, but in the farthest corner I spot a trash can. That'll do.

I float it over to me, close to the entrance to the stairs, and light my lumen. Even with that, my hands still feel chilled, but I know soon enough that'll abate. With any luck at all. A chill runs down my back as the grubby contents catch flame and start to puff out grey smoke that itself gets picked up by that wind and carried away.

After a few minutes, I finally stop shivering, mostly. A distant thought tells me that I _could_ just go back inside, but, well, that means confronting the masses yet again. More hand shaking by diplomats and celebrities. Anyone else's dream, I suppose, but for now I just soak up the silence.

It's New York, so it's never truly silent. Down below the honks of car horns and the distant roar of the wind brushing through the avenues permeates. But it's nothing compared to in there- they have Yo Yo Ma in there, playing some fugue I never cared to learn when I was on the run, and don't care to learn now.

Some time later I hear a door open and shut. Probably Six. She's been so matriarchal lately, it actually gets annoying. I want to shout at her to go fix whatever went wrong with her and Sam and leave me alone for a little while, just a little while-

But it's not Six. I see as I turn that it's actually two people. One is the elusive Daniella Morales, and the other is Marina. Strange couple.

"John Smith! Haven't seen you all night!" Danny shouts across the wind.

I turn the rest of the way and lean back against the iron railing. "Didn't feel like making much of an appearance."

"Heard that one before from you," she retorts as she stomps up to my trash fire. " _I have better things to do, let the lackeys handle the press_. Yeah, yeah. Lackeys can handle it. Right."

"Just as long as you don't medusa me, I think I'll live," I chuckle.

Marina doesn't say anything, but there's nothing unusual there. She follows behind Danny almost timidly, but there's nothing timid in her eyes. They glint against the glow of the fire and tell me- _I get it, I do. Don't let Danny boss you around_.

"Don't give me a reason," she presses two hands up against the railing and breathes in the smoke and city air. I assume she's more used to it than I am. Marina reaches out her hand and I take it, squeezing and pulling her closer as I drop down to a sit.

"The Hungarian president is in there, giving everyone a hard time," Mar fills me in. Slowly she rests her head on my shoulder. "Insists on photographs, insists on talking about _the future_ with each of us for as long as we let him…," she trails off. The wind whips her hair into her face, and she brushes it away and tucks it behind her ear.

"You've been there, right? To Hungary?"

She sucks in a breath. "I don't know where I've been and where I haven't, John. Adelina never told me everything."

"Didn't you keep track? You knew your names for some counties."

"Some of them, yes."

Then Danny rounds the trash fire and looks down at us, eyebrow cocked, smirk evident. "I'm not used to being the third wheel, you know."

"Go grab a date and bring him back up, it shouldn't be hard," I say, trying to match her bravado subconsciously. "Go make out with some handsome secret serviceman. Imagine the scandal."

She kicks me lightly with the side of her flat, but she still bites her lip and looks away, somewhere off over the horizon. Eventually, she moves to sit down next to Marina, drifting off into her head for a while.

For a long time we don't talk. I listen to Marina's breathing for so long that I barely notice when it elongates, when it deepens. I glance over at her just to make sure she isn't asleep.

The darkness falls back over us when the trash fire dies. It's then that I catch the shine of the stars over the overwhelming brightness of the city below; and, like always, my eyes are drawn to one point in that black night. Because of the rampant light pollution I can't actually see anything there, but I know. I just know. Hundreds of light years away, but undisturbed. When the scientists came asking for the location of Lorien on a star chart, we made sure we never gave them the right one. That's something that's supposed to die with us. Let the dead planet rest.

When the honking from down below lessens a little, I think we should go in. When I realize I can see my breath, I _know_ we should go in; Marina might be impervious to the cold, but others of us don't want to freeze our balls off out here. But I realize that I'm not cold at all, not really, because she's tucked up against me, still breathing, just breathing. I wonder what she's thinking.

 _I wish Danny would go away_ , she says in my head.

 _You tell her, then, see how that goes for you_.

 _I just might_.

 _How'd you two end up together, anyway? You're so different, I never imagined you as friends._

 _Got caught by that Hungarian at the same time_. Even in her mind, her voice still takes on this rueful tone.

 _Ouch_.

 _He wasn't rude or anything. No more than the rest of them. He was just… so insistent! He kept talking, even when I tried to walk away, he kept talking! I don't know what demon possessed him to try it_.

 _Well, he's probably passed out on some hotel couch by now, if it makes you feel better_.

 _Not really_.

I chance a glance over to Danny. Her eyes are open still, but distant, looking into the shadows of the taller buildings around us, not really with us. Her mind has swam somewhere far, far away.

 _What happened to the others? Six and Nine? Nigel and Ran? Lexa and Ella?_

 _Lex left before we did. She left Ella with Six, told her to not let the girl out of her sight. I didn't hear how that ended._

 _I could probably ask her. We're linked._

 _Don't, I hope she's sleeping. She should be, anyway._

I hesitate for a second, thinking of the possibilities. _If Nine and Six are hooking up right now, how would that make you feel?_

 _Don't make me think about it, please_. She giggles a little, soft thing, not enough to wake Danny out of her trance. _I've been trying to not picture it ever since I came up here. I hope they put Ella somewhere not with them. If they did it. Or… are doing it. Oh god, I dunno._

 _I wonder if they think, we're doing it_. I grin a little, feeling her heart beat a little faster.

 _I don't care what they think_.

 _You and I did disappear completely from the party. It's the only logical conclusion._

 _Not to someone who knows you, moron. Someone who knows you would know you'd be moping somewhere, and I'd be friendly enough to let you do it._

 _And what about Danny?_

 _Oh god, they're gonna have questions, aren't they?_

 _So many._

 _Nine'll try and high five you. If you return it, I'm killing you. Hear me? Hear me loud and clear?_

 _Loud and clear_.

"Are you guys telekinetically fucking over there or something?" Danny asks drearily after a while.

"Not as far as you know," Marina muses, giving me a smirk.

"Because I don't want to hear it, that's all."

At some point, Danny let her hair down, and now it whisks by her face in the harsh winter wind. She doesn't make any more to contain it, for whatever reason. It dances around her head like some black fire, strands picking up everywhere and flying everywhere.

"That one over there," she says, nodding, and Mar and I take a look. There's a taller one across a few streets, by a few stories, with nothing inherently recognizable about it besides the lights in the windows. "My best friend jumped off that one when I was 14."

I don't say anything, because what is there to say? I feel Marina shift and look to see she's grabbed Danny's hand, and she pulls her closer then, pulls her right up to her side, presses her close. Only then do I realize that Danny's started to shudder, and through the black fire I see bright tears twinkle down her face.

"And my step-dad didn't even care. He hardly let me sleep anyway, and he didn't make an exception then. And now he's dead, and… I feel bad. Why is that? _Why is that?_ When he was alive I hated him with every part of my being, and now I miss him. _I really miss him_. He was such a _shithead,_ but he was _…. Normal. I miss being normal."_

After that she doesn't say much. When her crying lets up and her breathing evens out, Marina pats her hair down and braids it into a single long, braid, and then she leans back into me and Danny leans into her. And for the fourth or fifth time that night, but truly only the first, I finally start to feel the contentedness that I should.

Sometime much later, the wind finally dies off, but low-hanging clouds still envelop the city long after we go back inside.

 _ **Little late, but better than never. There ya go! Don't remember to tell me what you think!**_


End file.
